Chapter 20
On the next day, March 4th, I wrote to General Banks a letter,
which was extremely minute in conveying to him how far I felt
authorized to go under my orders from General Grant. At that time
General Grant commanded the Military Division of the Mississippi,
embracing my own Department of the Tennessee and that of General
Steele in Arkansas, but not that of General Banks in Louisiana.
General Banks was acting on his own powers, or under the
instructions of General Halleck in Washington, and our, assistance
to him was designed as a loan of ten thousand men for a period of
thirty days.